jailcd2015035: Study on the Consumer Usage Intended for the Shopping Street of Wakamatsu-ku, Kitakyushu

Abstract

In present-day Japan, "regional disparities" is a very serious problem between regional towns and metropolitan area. In regional towns there are many problems associated with Decline of the industry and depopulation, for example, demographic aging and declining populations, as a result of the concentration of population in the center of the city. These problems are getting serious with each passing year, and the areas are expanding. So, the decline of such district invented also the decline of the shopping street at the same time. Many of the shopping street of the regional towns have a lot of problems that cause customer attrition such as increasing number of supermarket or suburban complex, a decreasing number of stores due to management and inheritance problems, so as increasing of the number of closed shutter street (there are many empty stores). The target shopping street in this study were the Hon-Machi Est shopping street and Ginten-gai Street shopping street in Wakamatsu-ku, Kitakyushu where to be held the activation of revitalization. Authors conducted a questionnaire survey in order to study the usage of consumer. The results are compared with the data from 2006 and 2010 to study the changes in consumer usage, and to be used as the base were for the future shopping street activation. The target city in this study is Kitakyushu (Fukuoka Prefecture); located along the Kanmon Strait, at the most northern tip of the Kyushu Islands. Being located near the sea, the city had flourished by heavy industries such as steel and chemical industries and was also a starting point for traffic in the former times. However, aging of the society is remarkable in Kitakyushu, similar to many other cities, and result a decrease of its population. There were approximately about 50 shopping streets, but most of the shopping streets have a lot of vacant and closed down stores. However, almost all of them lost their vitality in the present, and turned into a shuttered street of vacant stores. Furthermore, the inactivity of the shopping street was to be seen because the suburbs were able to build easily a large shopping street by the revision of the large-scale store method in 1991. Pachinko parlors and red light districts are increasing, yet on the other hand, food stores and clothing stores are decreasing rapidly.